How to get into Second Life without really trying
Selby Evans is Thinkerer Melville in Second Life
Functional fixedness is a pompous psychological term for the observation that college students generally know what tools are for and sometimes don’t think of using standard tools in nonstandard ways. The classical study shows students failing to realize that a pair of pliers can serve as a weight to make a pendulum.
You can’t get functional fixedness unless you know the tools in your problem. So start by making a list of the main things that might serve as tools in your problem. Don’t worry about whether they are available. And don't get functionally fixed on what constitutes a tool.
When you know the tools, you know the rules. Take one tool at a time. Bring in your Head Staff, particularly your Canter, your Un, your Whys Guy and Everybody. Everybody knows how the item works. The Canters know why it can’t work any other way. The Uns and the Whys Guys, however, may have some suggestions on how to break the rules without breaking the tools.
And if you’re still wondering what fictional funkedness means, it means you rule the tools. We just made that up. When we use a word, it means just what we intend it to mean. No more, no less. We don't get functionally fixed on the meaning of words.
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